Page 142 of Our Little Secret

Marilee nodded. “Yeah, she’s coming. Didn’t she text you?”

“No.”

Marilee rolled her eyes. “Maybe it was supposed to be a surprise?” She thought for a second. “Yeah, maybe I wasn’t supposed to say anything. Oops.” She pulled a face, then shrugged. “My bad. Pretend you’re surprised, okay? Like over the moon with shock.”

“Will do.”

Marilee headed upstairs to “her” room, the smallest bedroom of the three, little more than a nook built over the front porch, complete with a dormer and round window that faced the mainland. It was still furnished with the bunk beds that Brooke and Leah had shared growing up. Brooke had spent hours in the upper bunk or staring out the window or reading, while Leah, on the lower bed, had played with her Barbie dolls and plastic horses, caught in a world of her own.

And now Leah was coming back for Christmas, presumably to mend fences.

After over a year of ice-cold silence.

What could possibly go wrong?

CHAPTER 31

“Oh, wow. That’s pathetic,” Marilee said. She was eyeing the Christmas tree as Neal, on his knees, plugged in the lights. Only a few in the string actually winked on. “Can’t we, like, have a real tree?” She looked from the little artificial pine to Brooke. “Like we did at home?” She gestured toward the fake tree with its sagging limbs. “I mean, look at it.”

“It is sad,” Brooke agreed and remembered the giant, festive firs they’d decorated in their home in Queen Anne. The tall trees had always been placed near the staircase so the highest branches could be reached from the upper landing and the star placed on the very top of the tree.

Marilee scoffed, “Mom, it’sbeyondsad. Way beyond.”

“Okay, okay. I’ve heard enough about this from the both of you.” Checking his watch, Neal said, “Maybe we can find a better one in a lot in Marwood. Maybe even at a discount, considering tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. The next ferry leaves the island in twenty minutes. We can make it if we hurry!” He rolled to his feet and looked at his daughter. “You in?”

Marilee was still staring at the tired little tree. “Oh yeah, I’m in. I’m in big-time!”

Brooke held up one hand. “I’ve still got some chores here, you guys go.”

“Really?” Neal said. “First you didn’t want to come to the landing and now . . .”

“Come on, Dad!” Marilee was already stepping into her boots. “You said the ferry was gonna leave.”

“Okay. Yeah. Let’s go.” But he sent one more I-don’t-get-you look at Brooke.

He slid on his jacket again, Marilee her coat, and then they were off, dashing outside, where the ground was now covered with a thin layer of snow.

Brooke heard the CR-V’s engine roar to life and checked the window, watching as Neal drove like a madman down the rutted drive, mud and water spraying from beneath the SUV’s tires.

She checked her watch.

Neal and Marilee wouldn’t be gone long—a twenty-minute ferry ride each way and an hour in town, a total of less than two hours—so she had to work fast.

This was her opportunity.

Enough time to search the house and make sure Gideon hadn’t left her any more little surprises.

While Shep followed after her, she walked through the rooms on the first floor, her gaze scouring every inch of the cabin, every small crevice. She remembered those tiny cameras hidden throughout the house in Seattle, the little eyes that had silently watched and recorded her every move.

Could there be more here, sprinkled about the house, hidden in dark corners and tucked into unlikely niches?

She located a small flashlight in the kitchen junk drawer and jammed it into her pocket. In the upstairs hallway she drew down the ladder, then climbed into the attic.

“Déjà vu all over again,” she told herself once she was in the cramped space and remembered her last foray into an attic, where she’d found all the spy equipment. Undeterred, she shone the tiny, bluish beam from the flashlight around the ancient joists and over the old, forgotten bins and crates. A few were broken, clothes and books and records from a previous era spilling out. Cobwebs glistened, and in one corner she discovered evidence of a rodent’s nest, now abandoned. The layer of dust was disturbed of course; Neal had been rooting around up here, searching for the Christmas decorations. She spied candles and photographs, a broken desk chair and cracked ceramic lamps, pictures of relatives she couldn’t remember and memorabilia from Nana’s high school: diploma, cap and gown, and yearbook, all slowly disintegrating.

Her breath visible, Brooke riffled through the piles, scanned the floor and short walls, and studied the wide expanse where she had to crouch to inch forward. A small window was cut into the peak of the roofline and she checked, only to find it cracked, rain leaking inside, the wall beneath it soft where the water had penetrated and rotted the wood.

Worse yet, she discovered evidence of bat droppings along the wall and on the floor. “Great,” she muttered as she searched an old file cabinet that held stacks of papers addressed to Mary Flannigan O’Hara. As if Nana would need the bank statements, letters, and reports any longer. Sooner rather than later she would have to clean this attic, as well as the basement.